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Vale 'picked the wrong town' to fight with: Layton

Federal NDP leader Jack Layton had some encouraging words for several thousand people attending a Sept. 19 rally at the Sudbury Community Arena in support of striking Steelworkers Local 6500 members.
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Federal NDP leader Jack Layton speaking at the rally. Photo by Heidi Ulrichsen.
Federal NDP leader Jack Layton had some encouraging words for several thousand people attending a Sept. 19 rally at the Sudbury Community Arena in support of striking Steelworkers Local 6500 members.

About 3,100 members of Local 6500 have been on strike since July 13. Steelworkers members are also on strike against Vale Inco in Port Colborne, Ont. and Voisey's Bay, Nfld.

Vale Inco “picked the wrong town” if it thought that it could “take away what working people have built over generations in this country and this town,” he said.

“You're going to win this battle, my friends,” Layton said. He assured the crowd that the NDP would fight for the strikers, and would “make sure there are federal anti-scab laws.”

Besides Layton, those who spoke at the event included provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath, Mayor John Rodriguez, international United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard and unionists from across Canada and around the world.

About half of the arena was filled during the rally. Among those in attendance were many families with small children. The participants stood up and cheered often during the event, waving union flags.

Several times throughout the event, union leaders asked the crowd if they were “ready to fight,” and they answered “Yes!” Retired union members led the crowd in singing songs such as “Solidarity Forever.”

One of the foreign union leaders attending the event, Artu Henrique da Silva Santos of CUT (Central Unica dos Trabalhadores) Brazil, told the crowd that Brazilian workers would mobilize to ensure that “strike breaking” workers from their country would not be sent to Sudbury.

He said Brazilian Vale Inco workers face much the same battles in trying to get a contract as those in Sudbury.

Gerard said the strike “is a fight like you've never had before.” It will determine “what kind of future we'll have, and what kind of future our kids and grandkids will have.”

In the old days, people used to complain that the profits from the mines went to Toronto or Ottawa, said Gerard. Now the profits go “to bankers in Japan,” he said.

He said that Vale Inco workers in Brazil “get treated like junk...They have a right to fire them at will,” he said.

Gerard said that “this fight isn't just about members of Local 6500,” it's about the entire Sudbury community.

Who attended?
-Jack Layton, federal NDP leader
-Andrea Horwath, Ontario NDP leader
-John Rodriguez, Sudbury mayor
-Glenn Thibeault, Sudbury MP
-Claude Gravelle, Nickel Belt MP
-France Gelinas, Nickel Belt MPP
-Sharan Burrow, president of the International Trade Union Confederation and the Australian Council of Trade Unions
-Manfred Warra, general secretary of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions
-Jyrki Raina, general secretary of the International Metalworkers' Federation
-Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress
-John Sweeney, past-president of the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organizations
-Artur Henrique da Silva Santos, president of CUT (Central Unica dos Trabalhadores) Brazil
-Eduardo Pinto, president of STEFEM, the union of railroad workers in four states in Brazil
-Paul Talbot, assistant general secretary, Unite the Union
-Jorge Campos, general secretary of SINDIMINA, a union of mine workers in Brazil
-Napoleon Gomez Urutia, general secretary, National Union of Mineworkers
-Leo Gerard, international president, United Steelworkers
-Ken Neumann, national director, United Steelworkers
-Wayne Fraser, United Steelworkers district director for Ontario and Atlantic Canada
-John Fera, president of United Steelworkers Local 6500

 



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